Articles Posted in Wrongful Death

From an early age, we teach our children that they should contact the police in the event of an emergency. As a law firm for injured victims in Oakland and throughout Northern California, The Brod Law Firm team knows that a strong law enforcement regime can save lives. As taxpayers, our whole community funds emergency services so that they will be available when we need them. However, one Northern California family is alleging that a loved one was murdered after Berkeley police failed to respond to a distress call.

According to reports in The Oakland Tribune and The Berkeley Daily Planet, the family of Peter Cukor, 67, has taken the first steps to file a wrongful death suit against the city of Berkeley. At approximately 8:45 P.M. on February 18, Cukor called police to report a suspicious intruder. Per the claim, a dispatcher told him that an officer would soon arrive at his Berkeley hills home located on Park Gate Road near Tilden Park. Allegedly an officer volunteered to respond to the call but the dispatcher instructed him not to go to the home. Believing an officer would be arriving shortly and seeing the intruder move away from his property, Cukor walked outside to the bottom of his driveway to help the officer locate his residence and advise the officer as to what he had observed. At 9:01 P.M., Cukor’s wife looked out an upstairs window and saw that, while police had not arrived, the intruder had returned. She watched as the man, later identified as 23 year old Daniel Dewitt of Alameda, hit Cukor on the head with a ceramic flowerpot. She then placed an additional call, this time to 911. The police did respond and Cukor was taken to the hospital where he died as a result of his injuries.

The Cukor family believes that the city and the Police Department showed gross negligence in failing to properly train and supervise their emergency dispatchers. While a criminal case is pending against Dewitt, who had previously been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and whose murder case has been suspended while he undergoes additional treatment, the Cukors believe the city shares in the blame for Peter Cukor’s death. Previous statements by a police detective suggest the department believes that Cukor had left his house to seek help at a nearby fire station, rather than to help police locate his home as his family alleges. Police have also stated that they had no way to know that the intruder would attack Cukor. An additional dispute exists regarding whether the phone number used by Coker was a non-emergency number, as a police representative suggested at a community forum, or had been advertised as the number to call in case of an immediate threat to life or property, as the family claims.

Few things are as enjoyable on a hot summer day as refreshing dip in a swimming pool. Unfortunately, pools can be a danger zone, especially for young children. Less than two weeks into the month, June has seen three toddlers perish in swimming pool deaths in Sacramento and surrounding areas. Fourteen month old Emily Elizabeth Washington died from an apparent drowning in the backyard pool of a home in Carmichael on June 2. Three days later, on June 5, two year old Jazman Coulter drowned in the pool on the 7400 block of Winnett Way in south Sacramento. This Sunday, three-and-a-half year old Emille Hahn lost her life in the pool at her Folsom home. Several other incidents of near-drowning in the Sacramento region have also been reported this month, with a fourth death occurring in a bathtub in Elk Grove.

According to a report in The Sacramento Bee, 129 children died as a result of drowning in Sacramento between 1990 and 2009. Fifty-six percent of the fatalities occurred in residential swimming pools with other locations including rivers, bathtubs, spas, and even a bucket. Christy Adams, a trauma prevention coordinator with the UC Davis Heath System, noted that toddlers are especially susceptible to tumbling into a pool due because the weight of their heads makes them unstable. The children then lack the strength to pull their heads above the water. These factors combine to make drowning the top cause of fatal injury for children between the ages of one and five nationwide. One dangerous misconception is that the sound of a struggling child will alert a caregiver that to a drowning youngster. Drowning, especially when it involves a toddler, can frequently be silent because the child’s arms and legs may not be strong enough to allow the child to break the water’s surface.

In addition to reporting on the recent fatalities, The Sacramento Bee also carried important summer safety tips. Of course, vigilant supervision is the number one key to preventing drowning. Toddlers should be watched constantly when near a pool, with an adult within remaining in reach of the child. Swimming lessons are not only fun, they are also an important safety measure that is especially important for children whose homes have backyard pools. While “floaties” and water wings can be a fun addition to water play, they should never be relied upon as flotation devices. Life jackets are required by law in boats but they can also be a smart idea in pool areas. Toys should always be removed from the pool after use as they can draw a child into the water. Alarms can also be installed to sound an alert whenever someone enters the pool water. Gates are another important element of pool safety and latches should be above the reach of a young child.

On Monday Oakland made national headlines when a shocking fatal attack occurred at the small Christian college Oikos University. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the gunman was 43-year-old One Goh, a disgruntled former student. Goh allegedly went to the school to target a female school administrator that he believed had played a role in his dismissal from the school. When Goh realized that the administrator was not on the campus he began randomly shooting into classrooms and offices, killing seven people and leaving others injured.

Goh fled the scene and was arrested an hour and a half after the shooting in a Safeway store in the nearby city of Alameda. The allegedly mentally unstable Goh had approached a customer service counter at the store and stated he had just shot several people. Goh was booked at the Santa Rita Jail on Tuesday on suspicion of murder and attempted murder. If he is charged with multiple murders he will be eligible for the death penalty or life without parole.

When a loved one is lost under such unimaginable circumstances it is difficult to think about anything, much less whether their death was the result of another’s negligence. The focus of all those affected by this and similar tragedies needs to on remembering the loved one and mourning the loss.

The killing of eight people in a San Francisco salon shocked and horrified people in our region and across the nation. On Monday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a second victim’s family has filed a civil suit against Scott Dekraii, the alleged shooter. As the news report indicates, the family of Christy Lee Wilson is seeking compensation for the loss of the mother and wife who was murdered while getting her hair styled at Salon Meritage in Seal Beach. The San Francisco salon shootings appear to have been targeted at Michelle Fournier, whose family has also filed a San Francisco wrongful death lawsuit against the accused shooter.

When a loved one is lost, the family is left in an emotional turmoil that few can even imagine. It is hard to think about the legal system in such trying times, but it is still important to contact a San Francisco wrongful death attorney to be sure your legal rights are fully protected. In these cases, the criminal justice system does operate to punish the offender but it cannot provide direct aid to the victim’s family. This is where a civil lawsuit under California wrongful death principles can be crucial. Although the lawsuit cannot bring back the loved relative, economic compensation can help the family concentrate on rebuilding with less worry about the financial impact of the loss.

California Civil Code Section 377.60 sets forth the list of individuals entitled to bring a wrongful death lawsuit. The lawsuit is most often brought by a spouse (or registered domestic partner) or a child but the law does allow other individuals to bring suit if no spouse or child exists. In many cases, a single lawsuit may be filed to join multiple claims that are tied to the death of one individual.

A civil lawsuit for wrongful death can encompass both direct economic costs of the death as well as monetary compensation for more intangible loss. “Pocket book” costs that are often part of a civil suit include the loss of the individual’s earnings (including benefits such as health insurance carried by the victim) as well as direct funeral and burial costs. These economic losses can also include the loss of the victim’s help with household duties, a factor that is especially important if the lost relative was a full-time parent or home-maker. California law also provides that the civil court can award damages for non-economic losses. Such losses can include the loss of love, moral support, companionship, sexual relations, and other losses of an emotional nature.
Continue Reading ›

Two elderly women, one of whom was 100 years old, died from injuries after a 90-year-old driver crashed into the San Jose nursing home where they resided, according to sfgate.com. Suzanne Infante, 100 and Esther Bocanegra, 88, were sitting in the common room of Amberwood Gardens at about 9:45 a.m. Saturday when a car smashed through the wall. At the time of the crash, around a dozen people were in the room. Fortunately,not all of them were injured; only four residents and one employee were injured and treated at local hospitals. Initially the two women’s injuries were, for a non-elderly healthy person, not life-threatening, but they were made more serious by their ages. Bocanegra succumbed to her injures on Saturday, and Infante died on Sunday.

Whether or not the age of the driver is the reason this accident occurred, the truth of the matter is that story serves as a reminder thatseniors need to be honest with themselves regarding their abilities and make wise choices about when and where to drive. The number of senior drivers is expected to soar over the next 15 to 20 years, but many adults are reluctant to talk with their aging parents about their driving abilities. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, more than 30 million senior drivers 65 or older on the road today will soon need to evaluate the physical limitations that may cause them to reduce their driving or seek alternative transportation altogether. Elder Care professionals recommend the following checklist as a guide for determining if an elderly person in your life should alter their driving habits or stop driving altogether. Does the elderly person in your life:

• Drive at inappropriate speeds, either too fast or too slow?